Part 1117

"The homestead bill, or the granting of free homes from and on the public domain, became a national question in 1852. The Free Soil Democracy, at Pittsburg, Pa., August 11, 1852, in National Convention, nominated John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and George W. Julian, of Indiana, for President and Vice-President, and adopted the following as the 12th plank or resolution in their platform: 'That the public lands of the United States belong to the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and should be granted in limited quantities, free of cost, to landless settlers.' Thereafter it became a national question until its passage in 1862, and was in the platforms of political parties. It was petitioned for and against. Public sentiment was aroused. It was a serious innovation and would cause an almost entire change in the settlement laws. Instead of the public lands being sold for cash, for profit, or being taken, first, under the pre-emption system, which eventuated in cash purchases, they were to be given to actual settlers who would occupy, improve, and cultivate them for a term of years, and then receive a patent free of acreage charges, with fees paid by the homesteader sufficient to cover cost of survey and transfer of title. … The rich and fertile lands of the Mississippi Valley were fast filling up with settlers. Agricultural lands in the Middle States, which, after the year 1824, were bought for $1.25 per acre, now sold at from $50 to $80 per acre. Former purchasers of these Government lands in the Middle, Western, and Southern States, were selling their early purchases for this great advance, and moving west, to Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri, and there again taking cheap Government lands under the pre-emption laws. The western emigration caused a rush—a migration of neighborhoods in many localities of the older Western States. Following the sun, their pillar of fire, these State founders moved westward, a resistless army of agents of American civilization, and there was a demand for homes on the public lands, and a strong pressure for the enactment of a law which should confine locators to small tracts, and require actual occupation, improvement, and cultivation. A fierce political battle now ensued, beginning in 1854, and continuing until 1862, the year of the passage of the law. The demand of the settlers was incessant and constant." Mr. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, made himself the special champion of the measure in Congress. On the 1st of February, 1859, a bill embodying its principles was carried in the House, but was not permitted to reach a vote in the Senate. The slaveholding interest was almost solidly against it. In March, 1860, a similar bill was again passed by the House. The Senate substituted a bill granting homesteads to actual settlers at twenty-five cents per acre, instead of free of cost. After protracted conferences, the House was forced to accept the Senate bill, with slight amendments. But if the enemies of the measure had so nearly lost their control of Congress, they still owned the President—Buchanan—and he killed it by a veto. Then came the rebellion and civil war, absorbing all minor questions, and nearly two years went by before the law which opened the public lands freely to all actual settlers was adopted. It became a law by the signature of President Lincoln on the 20th of May, 1862. The following are the essential provisions of the Act: "That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter-section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to pre-emption at one dollar and twenty-five cents, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated lands, at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, to be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed: Provided, That any person owning or residing on land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres. … That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one or more years of age, or shall have performed service in the Army or Navy of the United States, and that he has never borne arms against the Government of the United States or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not, either directly or indirectly, for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever; and upon filing the said affidavit with the said register or receiver, and on payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified: Provided, however, That no certificate shall be given or patent issued therefor until the expiration of five years from the date of such entry; and if, at the expiration of such time, or at any time within two years thereafter, the person making such entry—or if he be dead, his widow; or in case of her death, his heirs or devisee; or in case of a widow making such entry, her heirs or devisee, in case of her death—shall prove by two credible witnesses that he, or she, or they have resided upon or cultivated the same for the term of five years immediately succeeding the time of filing the affidavit aforesaid, and shall make affidavit that no part of said land has been alienated, and that he has borne true allegiance to the Government of the United States; then, in such case, he, she, or they, if at that time a citizen of the United States, shall be entitled to a patent, as in other cases provided for by law: {3464} And provided, further, That in case of the death of both father and mother, leaving an infant child or children under twenty-one years of age, the right and fee shall inure to the benefit of said infant child or children; and the executor, administrator, or guardian may, at any time within two years after the death of the surviving parent, and in accordance with the laws of the State in which such children for the time being have their domicil, sell said land for the benefit of said infants, but for no other purpose; and the purchaser shall acquire the absolute title by the purchase, and be entitled to a patent from the United States, on payment of the office fees and sum of money herein specified. … That if, at any time after the filing of the affidavit, … and before the expiration of the five years aforesaid, it shall be proven, after due notice to the settler, to the satisfaction of the register of the land office, that the person having filed such affidavit shall have actually changed his or her residence, or abandoned the said land for more than six months at any time, then and in that event the land so entered shall revert to the Government.' … This original homestead act has been amended several times. … The principal amendments were in the nature of extension of its privileges, and the limit of 80 acres of land of the double minimum class, $2.50 per acre, within certain road limits, has since been done away with by acts of March 3, 1879, July 1, 1879, and June 15, 1880; there now being but one class of agricultural lands, so for as regards the minimum quantity in homestead entries. The act of June 8, 1872, was known as the soldiers' and sailors' homestead act. It gave honorably discharged soldiers and sailors from the Army and Navy of the United States lands under the homestead act in any locality, and deducted from the five years' residence which was required to make title their term of service in the Army and Navy during the war of the Rebellion. One year's residence and cultivation, however, were necessary. … The soldiers' additional homestead provision was to give those soldiers who had had the benefit of the homestead act, to the extent of a quantity under 160 acres, an additional amount, so as to make their allowance 160 acres."

_T. Donaldson, The Public Domain, chapter 27._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May). General Hunter's Emancipation Order, rescinded by President Lincoln.

Major General David Hunter, having lately succeeded to the command at Hilton Head, South Carolina, issued, on the 9th of May, 1862, a General Order (No. 11), declaring martial law in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, and adding: "Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these States … heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free." This order was rescinded by President Lincoln in a Proclamation, dated May 19, in which he used the following language: "Whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free; and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field."

_E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, pages 250—251._

ALSO IN: _J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 6, ch. 5._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: South Carolina). Employment of the freed Negroes as armed soldiers.

The negroes within the Union lines in South Carolina, at Hilton Head and elsewhere, were placed under the charge, at first, of agents appointed by the Treasury Department; but disagreements arose between these agents and the military authorities, and the former were recalled. "These several agents had been replaced by a superior officer of the staff, General Saxton, who was himself placed under the orders Of General Hunter with the rank of a military commander. By this action the government at Washington sustained Hunter in his conflict with the agents Of the Treasury Department—a conflict originating in very serious causes, for it affected the question of slavery in its most vital points. … Mr. Cameron [Secretary of the Treasury] had authorized General Sherman to organize the negroes into squads and companies. The latter had at first only been employed in manual labor, such as the construction of forts, roads and wharves; but Hunter, on taking Sherman's place, saw that he could give a much wider interpretation to the Secretary's instructions. He substituted muskets for the pick-axes used by the detachments of negro laborers organized by his predecessor; and, instead of making them dig the earth, he had them taught military exercises. Nor did he stop here; but wishing to increase the number of these new soldiers, he gathered all the adult negroes residing on the adjoining islands at Hilton Head on the 12th of May, in order to induce them to enter the military service. … The civil agents complained bitterly of the trouble this measure had created among the people entrusted to their charge, and thence sprung the quarrel which Mr. Lincoln cut short by deciding in favor of Hunter. The protection granted to fugitive slaves was the first logical consequence of the war, their enrolment in the Federal armies was the second. As untimely and impolitic as was the proclamation by which Hunter had taken upon himself to free the slaves outside of his jurisdiction, the creation Of the first negro regiment was an act skilfully conceived. It was essentially a military act; it raised and ennobled the freedman by entrusting him with arms; its legality was unquestionable from the moment that the President approved of it, for there was no law to prevent him from enlisting colored volunteers. In short, it showed to the Confederates that the Washington government was determined not to allow itself to be any longer paralyzed by the vain hope Of reconciliation. … But notwithstanding the success of this first experiment, considerable time elapsed before the Federal government concluded to follow Hunter in this direction."

_Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 2, book 7, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Williams, History of Negro troops in the War of the Rebellion, chapter 5._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign: The Battle of Williamsburg and the slow advance to the Chickahominy.

On the evacuation Of the rebel works at Yorktown, "our columns followed on in pursuit, McClellan remaining in Yorktown, busy with questions of transportation. The enemy under Longstreet had awaited our approach at Williamsburg. Hooker first attacked, having been brought to a stand by a work known as Fort Magruder, and kept up a heavy pounding all the forenoon [May 5). Kearny came to his rescue when Hooker's men were all but spent. Hancock moved around the enemy's left, seized some abandoned redoubts, and made a brilliant diversion. But there was no cooperation in our attack; no one on the field was in supreme command, and the day was fruitlessly spent in partial blows. The enemy retreated at night. Our loss was 2,200; theirs in all probability less."

_T. A. Dodge, Bird's-eye View of our Civil War, chapter 11._

"General Johnston says [' Narrative,' p. 124]: 'We fought for no other purpose than to hold the ground long enough to enable our baggage-trains to get out of the way of the troops. This object was accomplished without difficulty. There was no time during the day when the slightest uncertainty appeared.' He also says that Longstreet's and Hill's divisions slept on the field; that what deserves to be called fighting ceased two hours before dark, yet the Confederates held the field until the next morning, when they resumed their march. … There may be a little rose-color about these statements, but the substantial facts seem to be accurately stated. … General McClellan made no pursuit after Williamsburg, for reasons which he who will may find stated in his Report; and we may pass on with the single additional remark that the battle of Williamsburg was unnecessary, for the position might have been turned by a movement by our right. This was actually accomplished by Hancock, after Hooker had met with all his heavy loss; and it might as well have been done before as after. … The three weeks which followed the battle of Williamsburg were so devoid of incident that it seems to be sufficient to say that the Confederates moved up the Peninsula in two columns. The right column, composed of the divisions of Smith and Magruder, followed the road by New Kent Court House, and in three marches reached the Baltimore Cross Roads, 19 miles from Barhamsville. The left column, composed of the divisions of Longstreet and D. H. Hill, reached in the same number of marches the Long Bridges. The army remained five days in this position, facing to the east. … The iron-clad Virginia [better known as the Merrimac] was destroyed on, or just before, the 14th of May. This event opened the James River to our navy; and, to be ready to meet an advance up that river as well as from the direction of West Point, the Confederate forces were ordered to cross the Chickahominy on the 15th May. On the 17th their army encamped about three miles from Richmond, in front of the line of redoubts constructed in 1861. … During this period the weather was generally fine, cool and breezy, but gradually tending towards heat. … McClellan sent out cavalry reconnoissances from Williamsburg on the 5th and 7th May. … The advance of the main body began on the 8th; and on the 10th headquarters were at Roper's Church, 19 miles from Williamsburg, with all the troops which had arrived by land, except Hooker's, in the vicinity of that place. … By the 15th, headquarters, and the divisions of Franklin, Porter, Sykes, and Smith, reached Cumberland on the Pamunkey. … On the 19th of May, headquarters and the corps of Porter and Franklin moved to Tunstall's Station on the railroad, five miles from White House. On the 20th, Casey's division forded the Chickahominy, where Bottom's Bridge had been, and occupied the opposite heights. Bottom's Bridge was immediately rebuilt. … On the 22d, headquarters moved to Cold Harbor. On the 24th, we carried the village of Mechanicsville, but the enemy destroyed the bridge on which the Mechanicsville Turnpike crossed the river. On the same day our left advance secured a position at Seven Pines, the point of junction of the Nine-Mile Road with the Williamsburg road, which last road crosses the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge. … It is difficult to account for, or justify, the slowness of McClellan's march. The distance from Williamsburg to the middle of a line drawn from Bottom's Bridge to Cold Harbor, measuring by the road, is about 40 miles. That from West Point to the same point, measuring in the same way, is considerably less. One might almost say that, in the three weeks which McClellan took to accomplish this distance, he might have marched his army all the way in order of battle, bridging streams, felling trees, making roads, and supplying his army as he advanced. 'I had hoped,' he says, 'by rapid movements to drive before me, or capture, the enemy on the Peninsula, open the James River, and press on to Richmond, before he should be materially re-enforced.' What was there to hinder his making the attempt? Instead of that he followed him at the average rate of rather less than two miles a day."

_F. W. Palfrey, After the fall of Yorktown (Massachusetts Military Historical Society Papers, volume 1, pages 95-114)._

ALSO IN: _J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, chapter 5._

_Report of Joint Commission on the Conduct of the War, 38th Congress 2d session, volume 1._

_Official Records, series 1, volume 11, part 1._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). Evacuation of Norfolk by the Rebels. Destruction of the Merrimac.

"The movement of our grand army up the Peninsula, in connection with Burnside's successes and captures in North Carolina, had rendered the possession of Norfolk by the Rebels no longer tenable. … General Wool, commanding at Fortress Monroe, having organized an expedition designed to reduce that important city, led it thither on the 10th; finding the bridge over Tanner's Creek on fire, but no enemy to dispute possession of Norfolk, which was quietly surrendered by its Mayor. The Navy Yard and Portsmouth were in like manner repossessed; the Rebels, ere they left, destroying every thing that would burn, partially blowing up the Dry Dock, and completely destroying their famous iron-clad known to us as the Merrimac. They left about 200 cannon. … Two unfinished iron-clads were among the vessels fired by the Rebels ere they left."

_H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 2, page 127._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign: Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines.